Holly Riordan

Find a person that always makes you feel missed when you’re not around. Always makes you feel beautiful when your insecurities rise up. Always makes you feel valuable. Always makes you feel wanted. Always makes you feel loved.

If the government doesn’t know about it, they should. After what happened to me. After what could happen to someone else.

Aquarius: He’s going to spoil you with words. Poems about how soft your skin feels. Songs about how sweet your lips taste. Texts about how lucky he is to have you.

A lumpy wedding dress sat on the floor, spotted with blood. At first, I thought it was the one from my closet. It took a few seconds to realize that the neckline differed from mine, and a few more to realize that a woman was inside of it.

You’re everything. Everything I ever wanted. Everything good in this world, in my world.

Frequently eating food that you know is going to make your semen taste disgusting.

Dried blood was crusted over the letters. I had to pick it off with the tip of my thumb, because it wouldn’t rub away with a cloth.

You were unexpected. Untamed. Unpredictable. I never knew what would happen when we were together. If our conversations would lead to dinner at the diner or to me escaping to the bathroom for a cry.

You care more about others than yourself. You think with your heart, but it isn’t your heart that you’re worried about. It’s everyone else’s hearts. You don’t want them to be sad. You want to bring them joy — even if that means you’re forced to suffer.

You’re going to accuse him of things he’d never do. And you know he’d never do them, but that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t silence the paranoia in the back of your brain. And when you make unfair accusations, he’ll get offended. He’ll hate that you don’t trust him.

One day, you’ll have someone to break up the monotony. Someone to hold your hand while ice-skating. Someone to squeeze your thigh at the movie theater. Someone to drag you onstage at a karaoke bar and take the wheel during a road trip and spoil you at your favorite restaurant.

Almost relationships mean disappointment. They mean getting your hopes up and having them come barreling down. They mean letting your high expectations drop miles below their original level. They mean wasted time and tears and unanswerable questions.

Whenever he makes promises, he keeps them.

When you accidentally brush up against each other while sitting side-by-side. And neither of you inch away to establish your person space, because you can’t stand the absence of each other’s skin.

“I tore the bag open and out flopped a fully developed, completely green, dead baby, with a very smushed head. You can imagine my shock; opening the bag, expecting to find shoes, clothes, maybe a wallet, and instead a tiny human plopping out.”

“We were only out there for about a minute. When we came back in, there was blood on the walls! Little drops of blood on every wall on the first floor, and some on the walls on the second floor. “

Find out what stirs the adrenaline that’s been hibernating in your veins. Find out what convinces you to stay up until 3 AM and wake up at 5 AM. Find out what puts the suicidal thoughts to rest and gives you a burst of appreciation for the living.

I don’t want the high your smile gives me if it means that one day, I’m going to crash. Because I can’t handle the aftermath.